There are currently a plethora of office products, business form constructions and other stationery items that are available in the market today and yet with this inordinately large selection of offerings and permutations, there remains a continuing need to develop new products due to changes in technology, societal trends, diversification and new information handling needs of businesses and consumers alike.
However, while printed products, such as pieces and other assemblies that are intended to be used in business communications, can be delivered in a wide variety of formats, constructions and configurations, the manufacturing of such diversified products may be unattainable by most producers of such products, particularly smaller sized manufacturers. Typically, one of the most significant limiting factors for a manufacturer in being able to produce a particular construction or expand product capabilities is the available equipment the manufacturer has on hand to generate such printed pieces. Such forms handling machinery can be quite expensive and in addition the equipment may require some customization before the equipment can be integrated into a particular manufacturing processes. Thus, egress into new product categories may simply not be possible due to cost constraints.
Information carrying structures such as business forms with removable cards, tags and labels have long been used to convey information to the holder, presenter or recipient of the business form. When utilizing removable cards, such cards include but are not limited to insurance, medical, identification (ID cards), membership applications, admissions, tickets, collections, special events, credit or debit cards, temporary passes and the like.
One traditional means used to deliver cards includes placing the card in a carrier that had cut out notches to receive two or more comers of the card and then deliver the card through the mail, by use of a courier or by such other means in order to place the card in the possession of the intended recipient. However, while effective in delivering the card to the end user, the process of assembling the mailing can be cumbersome, in that it requires the carrier to be printed and then to subsequently cut notches in the carrier to create areas to hold the comers of the card and then, finally placing of the card in the carrier. Next, the carrier is typically folded and then usually placed in an envelope prior to mailing the card to the recipient. In addition to being a somewhat cumbersome manufacturing process, the process itself can be expensive, in that it requires a number of pieces, a supply of cards, carriers and envelopes. Thus, there has been a continuing trend to move away from such processes and reduce the number of separate components and steps required to prepare such a business form construction.
Another means by which to deliver cards, arose out of the need to reduce such processing complexities as discussed above, includes simply affixing the card to the top surface or uppermost portion of the sheet of paper or the like. This product configuration eliminated the need to die cut notches in the carrier to create an area to receive the card as well as the step of having to align and place the comers of the card within the cut out area of the carrier.
In the construction described above, one where the card rides on top of the surface or face of the substrate, the card is normally affixed to the sheet of paper through the use of a spot adhesive that would hold the card in place during handling and transport, yet allow the card to be readily removed by the recipient. Alignment was not a critical concern and hence processing speeds improved. However, this construction, while eliminating some of the drawbacks associated with the above mentioned arrangement of putting a card into a carrier assembly, still suffered from unforeseen difficulties and created new problems in that the card was placed on the surface of the sheet of paper which then created a raised area that often resulted in jamming of the printer or feeding apparatus when attempting to image or process the paper substrate with the card attached. Unfortunately, while this particular construction resulted in manufacturing efficiencies, it also created difficulties for the end users as such product configurations had to be carefully or even gingerly fed through the printer, again slowing distribution to the end user and resulting in significant frustration of the end user or printer of the form construction.
In a still further effort to overcome the above-mentioned problem of differential thicknesses created by the inclusion of the card on the surface of the paper or substrate, manufacturers then sought to create holes, pockets or die cut areas that extended through the particular substrate. The cut outs generally corresponded in size and shape to the card that was to be placed into the receiving area. In such a construction, when the card is placed into a receiving area, the card may not rest above the level of the surface of the paper substrate, but instead could extend below the bottom surface of the sheet of paper as the card was held in position by tape or other means sufficient to secure the card to the carrier. Once again the manufacturer, while solving the problem of having the card extend above the surface of the sheet, faced the problem of alignment and having to carefully position the card within the receiving area.
In addition to alignment, the manufacturer also had to hold and secure the card in the receiving area. As such, and in order to hold the card in place in the carrier, another web of material was affixed over the hole in the form of a patch, a continuous strip that ran edge to edge or segments of material that would hold the card in position, see for instance U.S. Pat. No. 5,403,236. While effective in over coming the problem with the card being placed on top of the substrate, such a construction then suffered from additional problems.
The addition of the supplemental material over the area of the cut out to receive the card again created a raised portion that extended either below the surface of the paper or alternatively both above and below the surface of the paper, depending upon the thickness of card structure. Again, the construction could still only be fed in a small amount to the printer, as the area of double thickness around the card area created a hump, or a sloped configuration when several card carrying sheets were placed in a stack. This limited the amount of cards that could then be placed in the tray to be fed to the printer or processing equipment.
A still further solution to the above-mentioned dilemma was to create a calendared area or recess in the paper substrate by crushing an area of the paper that corresponded to the size of the card. A card was then placed within the crushed area of the substrate. Such a process generally eliminated the need to apply a patch to hold the card in the area of a cut out into which a card would be inserted; however, this construction still suffers from other drawbacks. Initially, the thickness of the card material was typically more than the thickness of the paper substrate. As such, the top surface of the card would still be above the top surface of the paper substrate leading to an arrangement that still suffered from difficulties in processing the card due to the differential thickness arising out of the card sticking out of the well or recessed area. In addition, the manufacturer still had to accurately align the construction so that it would fit within the area of the recess or well.
Calendaring of materials, particularly fibrous materials also suffers from another draw back, that of expansion due to humidity. The fibers in a calendared sheet or web are still present, they have merely been crushed, and when exposed to increased levels of humidity it is possible for the fibers to expand and thus, the benefit of calendaring is lost. For example, a manufacturing plant in Louisiana will likely have a higher degree of relative humidity when compared for example with a plant in Arizona. Thus, while a calendared construction may work in the Arizona plant due to the low humidity it may suffer from problems in the plant located in a higher humidity area.
Edge calendaring has also been used in certain circumstances such as shown in Holmberg U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,618,520 and 4,447,481 but such processes would again be subject to the difficulties of manufacturing environments.
A still further business form and card construction was then contemplated to eliminate the need to align and place a card, usually plastic, in a well, recess, die cut area, etc. This solution was to simply affix a web of card material, again usually plastic, to the substrate. This enabled the manufacture to die cut the material directly in line with the imaging of the information carrying portion of the construction. However, such constructions, while attractive from a manufacturing perspective did not completely solve the processing of the form construction.
The web of card material still needed to be connected to the portion or web of information carrying material. In one arrangement, one web is affixed or partially juxtaposed directly onto an edge or side of the other portion by adhesive, crimping, mechanical fastening or the like. As expected, however, this arrangement creates a bump in the form and contributes again to processing difficulties in attempting to feed the construction through the printer. Again, such arrangements had to be carefully processed through the printer and only a few forms at a time could be stacked into a feed tray for a printer or processing equipment.
An attempt to resolve the problem of the discontinuous surface area was to place the webs next to or adjacent one another and then place a small strip of material, such as tape to connect the two webs together. While this solved some additional problems for card manufacturers and end users, still other problems persisted. The area covered by the strip of tape creates a zone having a higher thickness than the rest of the configuration. This again creates problems of feeding the construction through the printer. In addition, due to the use of two different types of materials, the card material may also be thicker than the information portion of the substrate and as such when the products are placed into a stack they then again create a sloped arrangement, thus limiting the number of cards that can be placed in a feed tray for a printer.
A still further difficulty encountered by such two part constructions is that the web of card material, typically a plastic or synthetic film, may build up excess static when placed in a stack thus making feeding of the forms difficult as they tend to stick to one another in the tray or other feeding mechanism.
In addition to the foregoing enumerated drawbacks of these prior art constructions, modifications were also attempted with respect to the processing or printing equipment, more specifically to the feed trays, in order to compensate for the pad lean or slope of the stack of products. Such modifications to the feed trays included the insertion of shims under one portion of the form structure, the form having the lesser thickness (that end without the card) in order to facilitate feeding of the forms. This modification led to more exotic configurations of feed trays, including spring loaded and adjustable shims in order to accommodate differing types of form products. However, while the modifications to the equipment appeared to address the problem of pad lean, it nonetheless required the end user or printer to make sure that the appropriate tray, shim, or adjustment had been made to the equipment prior to beginning run of the product. In those situations where the operator forgot to make the equipment change, then the finishing process was subjected to further delays and jamming as indicated above. Moreover, many end users or printers were simply unwilling to make the additional investment in such modified trays.
An additional processing problem also resulted from the use of such prior art constructions. Such constructions, due to the difficulty in feeding the forms, required the forms to be fed in a portrait arrangement into the printer, that is in connection with a form size of 8½″ by 11″, the 8½″ side was fed to the printer first. By feeding the short side of the form into the printer first, the printer, which calculates wear of the print head based on the total running length of the print job, was subjected to additional wear in running a regular pass of product as opposed to being able to run a regular pass of forms when fed in a landscape, or long side first, arrangement through the printer. That is, for example, a group of 100 forms run in the portrait direction would cause more wear on the print head than a group of 100 forms run in the landscape direction. As can be expected, this also resulted in a further delay in processing the forms by the end user or printer.
What is needed therefore, is a business form card combination that overcomes the foregoing difficulties, such as pad lean or sloped stacks, static buildup and other problems so that larger numbers of cards can be placed in a feed tray as well as the problem of bumps or humps in the form construction is mitigated and the cost of manufacture is reduced so that the construction can be produced economically as well as expeditiously.
Publications, patents and patent applications are referred to throughout this disclosure. All references cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference.